Democrats Win Control of Congress in a Sweeping Rebuke of Trump, Flipping Seven Senate Seats Including Texas and Kansas

WASHINGTON, Nov. 4 (TodayViralUSA) — Democrats won control of both the House and the Senate in Tuesday’s midterm elections, a sweeping rebuke of President Donald Trump that reached deep into Republican strongholds and will hand the party the power to check his agenda for the final two years of his term.

Democrats flipped seven Republican-held Senate seats, in Texas, Kansas, Iowa, Ohio, Maine, North Carolina and South Carolina, according to NBC News and Associated Press projections, giving them at least 54 seats including two independents who caucus with the party. In the House, Democrats passed the 218 seats needed for a majority overnight, and an NBC News analysis estimated they would finish with at least 258 seats, which would be their largest majority in nearly two decades.

Red states turn blue

The night’s biggest shock came in Texas, where Democratic state Rep. James Talarico defeated Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton by about 12 percentage points with most of the vote counted. The 37-year-old former middle school teacher becomes the first Democrat elected to the Senate from Texas since 1988, the AP said.

In Kansas, which has not sent a Democrat to the Senate in nearly a century, Democrat Adam Hamilton unseated Republican Sen. Roger Marshall. In Iowa, Josh Turek beat Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson for an open seat, becoming the first Democrat since Barack Obama to win a statewide federal race there. Former Sen. Sherrod Brown reclaimed a seat in Ohio by defeating Republican Sen. Jon Husted, and Annie Andrews won in South Carolina, where no Democrat had won a Senate race since 1998.

In Maine, Democrat Troy Jackson defeated five-term Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who conceded in a statement. “It has been the honor of my life to serve the people of Maine in the United States Senate,” Collins said, adding that she had called Jackson to congratulate him.

Democrats also held their battleground seats. Sen. Jon Ossoff won re-election in Georgia, Rep. Chris Pappas won in New Hampshire, and Abdul El-Sayed defeated Republican Mike Rogers for Michigan’s open seat, according to NBC News projections. Former Gov. Roy Cooper’s win in North Carolina had been the first Democratic pickup of the night.

Governors’ mansions flip too

The wave extended to the states. Democrats flipped governorships in Texas, Georgia, Nevada, Ohio and Iowa, giving the party a majority of governors for the first time since 2010, NBC News reported. In Texas, state Rep. Gina Hinojosa ousted three-term Gov. Greg Abbott to become the state’s first Latina governor. In Georgia, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms defeated Republican Rick Jackson and will become the first Black woman elected governor in U.S. history.

In Ohio, Democrat Amy Acton beat Republican Vivek Ramaswamy to succeed Gov. Mike DeWine, and in Iowa, State Auditor Rob Sand defeated Republican Zach Lahn. In Nevada, Attorney General Aaron Ford unseated Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo and will be the state’s first Black governor.

Trump strikes a conciliatory tone

NBC News exit polls showed Trump’s disapproval rating at 62%, and nearly half of voters said they saw the election as a chance to rebuke the president. Affordability, gasoline prices and the war with Iran dominated the campaign.

In interviews overnight, Trump said he was willing to accept the results. “I think we’ll work with the Democrats, and we’ll get along very well with them,” he told The Wall Street Journal. He also acknowledged that the Iran war played a part in Republicans’ losses, CNBC reported, saying people “were probably not willing to accept the short-term consequences of the price of gasoline.” Late Tuesday he had posted on Truth Social that he “wasn’t on the Ballot.”

What comes next

The new Congress will be sworn in in January. Democratic leaders signaled that oversight of the administration is coming: Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, posted “LAWYER UP” on election night. Other Democrats urged the party to focus first on costs. “Your first act out of the box needs to be to lower costs,” former Florida Rep. Val Demings said on NBC News.

Some races, including several House contests in Western states that count mail ballots over days, remained uncalled Wednesday morning.